Posted on 02/25/2005 11:22:14 AM PST by jbemis
THE BEST PICTURE
BY JAMES BEMIS
When this year’s Academy Award nominees were announced, many were shocked Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST was not nominated for a single major award. The movie, which chronicled Jesus’ last twelve hours, took the cinematic world by storm.
BREAKING AN UNSPOKEN TABOO
Because the movie was filmed in Latin and Aramaic with no big-name stars, Hollywood insiders figured producer and director Gibson was throwing away his $30 million investment. However, upon general release in February 2004, it was obvious something extraordinary had occurred: THE PASSION was not only a box office smash but the film succeeded brilliantly as cinema.
Gibson expertly puts us at Ground Zero of the last twelve hours in Christ’s life. In his wisdom, the director played it straight, letting the gripping Passion narrative unfold just as it has been passed down through the ages – thankfully, there’s hardly a modern touch found anywhere in the film.
In taking Christianity seriously, however, “The Passion” broke Hollywood’s unspoken taboo. Controversy raged about whether the film was “anti-Semitic.” But whether people loved or hated the film, most agreed it was extraordinarily powerful cinema. The question was not if the film would be nominated for major awards, but how many.
Then came January 26’s startling news: THE PASSION was nominated for three minor awards but no major ones. Few imagined Hollywood’s bias against Christianity was so big – and its elite so small – that THE PASSION would be virtually snubbed when the Academy Award nominations were announced. Was 2004 such a stellar year for the movies that a great cinematic achievement like THE PASSION could be ignored?
THE SECOND-RATE COMPETITION
Hardly. The five films nominated for 2004’s Best Picture are – at best – second-rate, forgettable as last week’s leftovers. RAY, for instance, is simply a mediocre bio-pic of the sort – albeit seamier – Hollywood used to churn out by the dozens: THE GLENN MILLER STORY, THE BENNY GOODMAN STORY, THE GENE KRUPA STORY, THE EDDY DUCHIN STORY, etc. (None of these – including RAY – holds a candle to “YANKEE DOODLE DANDY,” though.) You never forget you’re watching a movie about Ray Charles: Despite all the acting accolades, Jamie Foxx seems far too delicate and insubstantial for the role of a tough, complex giant like Ray Charles. As one who loves Charles’ music, I wanted to like the movie but found it trite and unmoving. Most viewers would better understand “The Genius” by listening to a greatest hits CD rather than watching this anemic film.
It says much about the corrupted state of our culture that Clint Eastwood’s MILLION DOLLAR BABY is considered mainstream. The story involves the freakish sport of female boxing, an activity that would be unthinkable in a civilized society. None of the athletes exhibit even the faintest hint of feminine virtue, but instead talk, act and think like undersized men with mammeries. Worse, the film smiles upon the “mercy killing” of an invalid by the nominally Catholic “hero.” The message: Once you’ve lost the ability to earn big bucks pulverizing women in a boxing ring, then life just ain’t worth living. This is deep thinking, Hollywood-style.
Finally, director Eastwood can’t resist taking cheap shots at the Catholic Church. As in last year’s MYSTIC RIVER, a priest is disparaged: This time, he’s made to appear immature and so ignorant he can’t explain the doctrine of the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception to a pesky parishioner. In short, MILLION DOLLAR BABY is a thoroughly repulsive film.
Martin Scorsese’s THE AVIATOR is similar to Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose: so overblown it hardly gets airborne. This leaden biography of Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is a cartoonish, indulgent, almost amateurish production. DiCaprio’s hair looks like it was dyed with shoe polish. In the second lead role, Cate Blanchett’s caricature of Katherine Hepburn is uproariously incompetent. Like every movie Scorsese has made since 1980’s great RAGING BULL, this film is too long, too loud, and too lumbering. Nothing in it rings true. Put another way, THE AVIATOR, as they say, must be seen to be disbelieved.
Critically acclaimed SIDEWAYS reveals more about its admirers than it does about human nature. The story revels in degradation - of marriage, friendship, courtship, family, etc. You name it, SIDEWAYS demeans it. Ostensibly about two friends on a week-long wine tasting binge before one’s wedding, the wretched SIDEWAYS is a sort of upscale PORKY’S, replete with foul language, naked fat slobs, animal-like carnality and juvenile high-jinks by two thoroughly unlikable male leads. If this is the “cultural landmark” many are saying, conservatives must ask whether American society has much left worth conserving.
FINDING NEVERLAND, a story about “Peter Pan” creator J. M. Barrie, is a thin but rewarding film, featuring an excellent performance by Johnny Depp – the first role I’ve seen in which he doesn’t grossly overact. Another highlight is the extraordinary performance by Freddie Highmore as a member of the family that inspires Barrie to write “Peter Pan.” NEVERLAND is an enjoyable and touching movie, but ultimately is rather insubstantial.
RELISHING RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY
By any artistic standard, THE PASSION is far superior to any of the films nominated as Best Picture. Why the cold-shoulder? First, part of the wailing over the movie was veiled envy from an embarrassed Hollywood establishment, those makers of infantile comedies and seductive trivialities who saw what a real filmmaker could do. Watching THE PASSION is an unforgettable experience: It demonstrates the heights that cinema is capable of but rarely achieves, especially these days.
Second, THE PASSION’S snubbing puts the lie to the Hollywood establishment’s reputed “tolerance.” In fact, a hostile blacklisting of Gibson and other Christians now occurring is far more hideous than anything happening during the supposed “Dark Ages” of the McCarthy blacklisting era because it is done out of religious intolerance. Over the years, observers have noted how Hollywood executives relish producing films that undermine, demean, and ridicule the Christian faith. This year the mask is ripped off and we see the bared fangs of religious bigotry in all its grisly and vivid ugliness. In a year when a great film like THE PASSION so obviously should have been honored, Tinseltown’s elites instead chose five forgettable films as the finest they had to offer. Faced with an opportunity to rise above their prejudices for a change, the Academy – to its everlasting shame - took a flyer.
The 2004 Academy Awards forever will be remembered as when the year’s best picture wasn’t nominated as Best Picture.
Blanchett gives probably the best performance of any kind in the last year. Scorsese is still one of the greatest living directors. If this is an indicator of this guy's taste, his opinion doesn't mean much.
ping
Agreed. Anybody that dismisses Scorsese's work out-of-hand like that is not very credible as a film critic.
Glad to see someone call it like it is.
Slamming all the other films nominated for Best Pic isn't the best argument for Gibson's film.
That being said, I won't be watching the Academy Awards again for the thousandth year in a row. They've become boring and repetitive and trite and predictable.
It wasn't too long ago that H'wood was promoting Der Bingle and Ingrid in "The Bells of St. Mary's" (and wasn't himself in St. Mary's JHS at the time?) and 'Duke' Wayne and Maureen O'Sullivan in a couple of other award-winning flicks.....and Barry Fitzgerald was the epitome of H'wood Irish-Catholicism for decades.
Eastwood was my anti-hero hero in the 'spaghetti westerns' and the 'Dirty Harry' flicks.
It must be the CA smog that makes guys like him decide that a Tonya Harding look-a-like film is worth making.
I haven't set foot in a movie theater in 20 years; (1) because there was nothing worth paying $10 to see and (2) nobody in charge seems to want to tell the a**holes that they're not watching TV and "keep your mouth shut."
I gambled on "Master and Commander" at the video store last year and since then I have rented it three times, read all 21 of Patrick O'Brian's novels and was blessed with the Collectors Edition DVD from my son for mybirthday last month.
Thank God the Sisters of Mercy taught me to love reading!!!!!
"Slamming all the other films nominated for Best Pic isn't the best argument for Gibson's film."
Agreed. "POTC" might've been an inspiring movie for religious movie goers, but watching a guy get beaten, bloodied, and stuck up on a cross for 2 hours isn't great cinema. I guess since I grew up Catholic, was an altar boy who helped with Stations of The Cross every Lent, and read the accounts of the Crucifiction literally, I just wasn't that in awe nor surprised or shocked by "POTC".
Guess after seeing The Passion, mobs ran out to destroy Jews. But Hollywood and the pundits would admit they were wrong if they recognized The Passion.
Do many consider The Passion to be entertainment?
So? It's their awards show. They can award it to anyone they want for any reason, good or bad. Witness the fact that they "honored" Michael Moore a couple of years ago for a very poorly made piece of hideous propoganda.
But it's still THEIR awards show.
Now don't get me wrong, I 100% agree with and applaud what this author wrote (I even agree with his reviews of the other films, down the line). What I disagree with is the unstated assumption that Hollywood ought to behave any differently. We get to criticize them, but we shouldn't expect them to change who they are.
Now, if we want to we can have our own awards show. We've had plenty of threads about "best picture" and other such categories (I liked the "best guy flick" the other day). But I bet there are FReepers out there who could actually organize an alternative film awards process that would represent the views of real people and not Hollywood robots.
So, any takers? Anybody think they have the organizing skills to get something like this off the ground?
I bet if we did it we could get the folks at the Liberty Film Festival interested in at least looking at what we come up with. Maybe an alternative to the Oscars (the Ronnys?) given 6 month's off cycle, around the 4th of July.
The last movie I enjoyed was Sixth Sense. That's about six years old now?
Well OK if all you saw was just 'a guy'.
They'll just settle for their stupid "Jesus is my homeboy" T-shirts and their red Kabbalah bracelets and Kabbalah water because religion to them is an accessory, like a new handbag or new yoga position.
I really don't care about "The Passion" getting accolades from Hollywood or not. They've (Hollywood) left their "containers" behind ages ago...
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